Keynote speech at WFTA & EFTA Annual Conference 2026
Dear distinguished guests,
Dear friends from Taiwan, dear friends of Taiwan from all over,
Great to see you all here today.
One of the sources of today’s discussions is Johan Vilhelm Snellman, a Finnish philosopher, journalist and statesman, an awakener of Finnish national identity, who was active in the time of Finnish autonomy in the 19th century.
But before diving into Snellman’s thoughts, I’d like to travel back in time a bit further, all the way to the mid-17th century.
Views on international affairs are often divided into two schools of thought: idealists championing liberalism, and realists championing realpolitik. In Finland, we nowadays balance in between with our value-based realism, a term coined by President Alexander Stubb.
But reading today’s news, the best explanations of how the world works are neither idealistic nor realistic. They are Oxenstiernan.
Axel Oxenstierna was a Swedish statesman, the Lord High Chancellor of Sweden. As the well-known story goes, Oxenstierna encouraged his son ahead of the negotiations that would lead to the Peace of Westphalia with the words of Pope Julius III:
”An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?”
”Do you not know, my son, with how very little wisdom the world is governed?”
How little wisdom, how little sense. It is hard to make sense of the world today, because it makes so little sense. Planetary crises are met with ignorance; misinformation is preferred over facts; arrogance and vulgarity are rewarded; powerful technologies are unleashed carelessly; allies are threatened; senseless wars are waged, driven by greed and paranoia.
This era of uncertainty challenges our democracies, especially small and middle powers like Finland and Taiwan. We are at risk of becoming pieces on a board of chaotic chess, where rules no longer matter.
But Mr. Snellman offers us an optimistic note. Snellman was a proponent of strength stemming from ideas, education and culture, of being a united society with shared goals.
In Snellman’s own words:
”A small nation has no destinies beyond which it cannot rise by developing itself.”
Even in this chaotic, uncertain world, in a dangerous time, it is up to us to respond and act in a way that enables us not only to survive but to thrive — and build a better world for all.
Geopolitical pressure, the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, the rapid development of AI, and hybrid warfare are nasty challenges. They don’t only create problems; they create dilemmas. Problems have clear solutions; with dilemmas, we face the need to handle trade-offs and confront uncertain consequences. We can perhaps prevent some shocks and harm, but not all.
We need resilience.
Resilience calls for robust strategies. Our choices in how we produce energy, procure defence material, and arrange social security, for example, need to hold up across a wide range of possible scenarios.
Resilience also calls for redundancy. Our critical functions — be they physical, economic or societal — must not be critically dependent on single actors, connections, or other bottlenecks or chokepoints.
But most of all, resilience calls for trust. Societal trust helps us respond and function when we face disruptions or malign influence. It enables us to fit together different views and perspectives, to function as a democracy. Building trust takes time, and it needs to be maintained. It requires humility from those in power; it requires transparency, patience, checks and balances. It requires cool heads and patience; it requires respect. It requires decision-makers to walk their talk, no matter how hard it is.
Trust is easier to destroy than to build, and undermining trust and attacking the institutions that maintain it is the preferred method of our adversaries.
But building and maintaining trust is worth the effort. I’d argue that societal trust is one of the superpowers of Finland, a key pillar in our success story.
To be resilient, we also need cooperation, friends to trust. And that is what today is about. Finland and Taiwan share many similarities. We are strong democracies with challenging geopolitical positions. We wish to prosper, provide solutions to global challenges, and peacefully coexist, but we are pressured and bullied by our authoritarian neighbours.
We both have experience in building societal cohesion and a sense of unity as multi-ethnic and multilingual nations. We both understand the role of science and technology in shaping a good future, and as a source of power that needs to stay under democratic control.
Thus, in this chaotic, uncertain age of geopolitics, it is very important to keep in touch, deepen cooperation and dialogue, and learn from and support each other. Finnish-Taiwanese cooperation is exactly what the times call for.
The cooperation is built around physical connections, economic connections, cultural connections, and, of course, as Nokia branded it, connecting people. There are many opportunities to do more in each of these.
Still, the times are not the easiest for small and middle powers, though. But perhaps more words from Snellman give us hope:
”History comforts us in the fact that people who truly want to be independent always have the strength to defend themselves.”
Ukrainians have shown us that this is as true today as it was in Snellman’s time.
Again, it all boils down to democratic resilience, which boils down to trust.
On my behalf, I’m happy to welcome you all here in Helsinki today, and I wish all of you a successful conference!
Thank you!